Reader Q+A, July: Getting Clients, Transitioning From Scriptwriting, My Newsletter Process

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Welcome to the first monthly Reader Q+A issue of Inkspiller! These issues will always be fully available for free, and will show up in your inbox the moment they post if you subscribe for free here. To read paid issues that go deep on topics related to copywriting, freelancing, and content strategy, as well as receive access to the entire back catalog of issues, get a paid subscription for only $10/month at the button below:

And thank you to everyone who submitted a question via the Reader Submission form, Reddit, Discord, and otherwise. I had more submissions than I could answer in one issue! To submit your own question, head to the Reader Submission form here.

This month: 

• Zag from Discord asks how a complete beginner might get their first client, 
• Pete asks how to transition from political speechwriting to copywriting, 
• and a Redditor asks about my usual newsletter writing process. 

I go deep on all three. Let’s get into it.

Names have been anonymized when requested.

Getting clients

Zag asks, via Discord:

Could you give a step by step breakdown for a complete beginner on how to get their first client? Or perhaps to get their first money?

I want to answer this one first, as it’s already been asked a few times in these reader submissions and all across the web in nearly every copywriting and freelancing forum I can find. And before I dive in, I should also say: this is a big question, big enough to warrant its own article at a later date. It’s something I’ve been working on, and will send out as an Inkspiller issue once it’s ready. 

But in the meantime, let me take a quick stab at answering this now, Zag! And thanks for writing in.

First things first: I can’t give you a step by step breakdown for getting your first client, because every copywriter’s talents, available opportunities, and experience are completely different. What worked for me was having other clients already on my roster.

Yes, it’s a really annoying catch-22, but it’s true: no one wants to be your “first” client, because no one wants to be a guinea pig. Clients want to know you already know what you’re doing, and other clients’ happy experiences are the best way to see that for themselves.

Of course, we all still do eventually get our first client, as I did. My first freelancing client was Tough Mudder, an intense action obstacle course through, you guessed it, a lot of mud. I was brought on with an art director to design some banner ads and a campaign wrapper for their upcoming season. I got that client through a creative staffing agency in NYC (probably Creative Circle). 

It was a relatively short project, and soon after a recruiter reached out to me about working with MetLife. That ended up being a two year contract before I moved on to other client work. But how did I convince Creative Circle I was competent? Three years of full-time agency work before it: first at Droga5 as a Social Editor, then at VaynerMedia as an Associate Copywriter. At those agencies, I worked on brands I never could have secured on my own at the time. 

[My portfolio has all of that era listed on in a nice little PDF that I've been meaning to update for a solid five years now: sean-curry.com/portfolio]

My advice to “complete beginners,” as described in your question, Zag, is to go full-time somewhere first. Ideally an agency, if you’re able, but in-house (that is, working directly for the company itself, probably in their marketing department) works, too. All the courses, podcasts, YouTube videos, and newsletters in the world can’t teach you what actual work can, and entry-level full-time work has a lower barrier for entry than freelance work does.

There’s a lot more I can say about why you should go full-time to start and what kind of work you can do to get the ball rolling in the first place, and I will in upcoming issues. For now, I hope this is enough to get you started! Thanks for submitting a question, Zag.

Transitioning from speech writing

Pete asks, via the Reader Submission Page

Hi there,

First, thanks for having an open Q&A! I'm a political speechwriter who has spent the last three years writing for a Governor. During that time, I've also been studying direct-response copywriting in the hopes of transitioning into long-form sales letter writing, like the letters Agora and Bottom Line put out.

I'm interested in freelancing and was wondering if you had any practical advice on getting or reaching out to clients. A lot of the same stuff is posted on Reddit and other forums, and honestly, you never really know if it's coming from someone with experience in the business or someone who just watched two YouTube videos. Any advice or tips would be amazing.

Thanks!

Thanks for submitting Pete! I’ll respond to your first paragraph by starting with your second, as it will lead into an answer for the first and is pretty closely tied to the previous question about getting clients.

I’ve seen the same advice about cold emailing on Reddit, and I’m here to tell you: that has never, ever worked for me. Granted, I’ve never invested too much time or energy into that as a strategy because there are WAY better ways to do it. Namely, reaching out to your network. After the MetLife gig I mentioned above, every single major client since has been acquired because I knew someone who knew someone that needed someone like me. 

I’ve kept a spreadsheet of every single professional contact I’ve made since 2016. Seriously It includes everyone from coworkers I’ve worked closely with on a major project for months or years to contacts from a random post I saw in a Facebook networking group or LinkedIn job listing. 

While I don’t think there’s a single entry that’s complete, every entry has a column for things like their name, last company I knew they worked for, the last email address I know works for them, the last time I reached out, what it was about, and when I need to reach out again. When I say “I find jobs through my network,” what I literally mean is “I go into that spreadsheet, find someone I haven’t reached out to in a while, and send them a message updating them on what I’ve been doing since we last spoke and what I’m looking for in the near future."

That spreadsheet is why I’ve been able to be independent for nearly a decade. It is my network.

[Note to self: this would also be a great topic for a future article, too!]

That’s how I recommend everyone looks for work. It doesn’t always pay off immediately, but it’s like a garden: the longer you patiently tend to it, the better fruit it will bear down the road.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work for beginners, as they’re still building out that spreadsheet, but you’re not a complete beginner. You already have a professional network you can start reaching out to. 

Instead of reaching out to clients cold, reach out to your network!

Which brings me to your first paragraph, specifically: “I'm a political speechwriter… I've also been studying direct-response copywriting in the hopes of transitioning into long-form sales letter writing.”

Why? Why do you want to go into direct-response copywriting or long-form sales letter writing? Please don’t misunderstand me, those are perfectly viable ways to utilize your writing experience, and it sounds like they can lead to a good, sustainable income. But there are other ways, too.

Until this year, I didn’t really know what direct-response copywriting actually was. I’ve only learned about it by reading the comments of aspiring copywriters on the /r/copywriting subreddit, and was shocked to learn how many seem to think this is the only kind of copywriting out there.

There is a LOT you can do as a good writer—especially one with three years of political speechwriting under your belt! For example:

• You’re already comfortable writing for someone else’s voice: that’s ghostwriting.
• You already know how to write copy that will be heard, as opposed to read: that’s voiceover scripts.
• You’ve had to ensure the copy you write is verifiable and well-sourced: that’s research.

You could go into script work, or editorial ghostwriting, or white papers and case studies. The copy you’ve been writing has had to hook an audience, build energy with a clear storytelling framework, and deliver a clear call to action at the end. That’s a landing page! 

It’s also a sales page or direct-response copywriting, which, again, are perfectly viable ways to use your skill to make money. Just be aware that those areas are currently flooded with new writers who will almost definitely be willing to undercut you on price. Your skills can transfer to more kinds of copywriting than you might think. And, if you lean on those skills, you’ll probably be able to find someone you already know that either needs work similar to what you’ve been doing, or knows someone else who does.

Thanks again for submitting to the Q+A!

Writing a typical newsletter

Here’s an interesting one, via Reddit:

Walk me through your typical newsletter writing process. How do you approach research, ideation, and crafting the copy?

Great question! This newsletter is still only a month old, so my process is still being developed, but here’s how it’s worked so far:

• Idea Generation and Capture
  • I hang out in /r/copywriting, /r/freelance, and the Copywriting Collective Discord server a lot. There are loads of questions with similar themes throughout all three, and as I answer them, I often find myself writing enough to justify an article.
  • I was a stand up comic years ago, and to come up with new jokes, I had to train myself to write down any new joke idea the second I had it. I’m not pursuing comedy anymore, but that training still comes in handy.
  • The same thing applies here: in the course of my regular copywriting work, I’m constantly thinking of stuff I’ve learned along the way that would make for good articles. The second I realize I've got something, it becomes a new idea draft in Google Docs and I barf as much of the idea as I can onto the pagebefore I let myself think about anything else.
  • Write! Down! Your! Ideas!
• Development
  • Then, those ideas passively marinate in my head. When the idea grows in a tangible, noticeable way, I capture that development in its relevant idea draft, but I don’t actively work on the articles until it’s time to start developing the next issue, or until the development comes on its own.
  • When it’s time to write a new issue, I open my Drive folder to see what’s ready for development, pick one, and that’s when I actively develop it. 
  • I've been allowing ideas to passively germinate in my head (so long as I capture them when I have them and any time they actually grow on their own) for a little while now. Previously I've worried this is just an excuse to not work on them, but so long as I show up every week to write the next article, the work really does get done.
  • If a piece needs any further research, this is when I do it, but most of what I’ve written for this newsletter so far has been my own opinion based on my own experiences.
• Drafting
  • I started out writing long-form articles, and had to learn everything else I’ve picked up along the way, so my mind naturally gravitates toward this style. I start with an outline (I explained a pretty simple framework to build on here) before moving onto a full draft.
  • For drafts, I try not to self-edit while writing. I call it a “dirty draft”—the point is not to write well, but to write. Get the whole idea out before you worry about whether or not it’s written the way you want it to be.
• Review and Editing
  • Review and edit are pretty straightforward, but also deserve their own stage of the writing process. Giving them their own space allows you to fully embrace the dirty draft. The dirty draft is where you write; this is where you write well.
  • If I’m able, I try to sleep in between Drafting and Review, and not a quick nap, either. A whole night’s sleep. If I try to edit something immediately after I wrote it, I miss things or rush the whole thing through. Sleep on it first.
• And, as always, I ruthlessly cut my copy for word count. This draft was initially over 3000 words, it’s current down to 2300.

Once the draft is reviewed and finalized, I put it all into Ghost, give it another review for formatting and links, add all my “Subscribe Now!” buttons and Blots And Drops and some silly thing for The Bottom Of The Page, and queue it up for publishing.

That’s it for our first Reader Q+A! These issues come standard with the Free subscription tier, and the Paid tier gets you this, one email a week on freelancing, copywriting, or content strategy, and access to my entire back catalog of issues.

And the Reader Submissions form is always open. See you next week!

Blots and Drops

• BANANA!
• This is great advice for B2B copywriters, but even more infuriatingly, it's so well-packaged. Not only is it great advice for copywriters fearful about navigating an AI world (it's no longer about executing, it's about developing strategy that will then be executed on), it follows its own advice! It’s helping me develop my perspective on my business! I'm furious I didn't come up with it myself.

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Today was my first day on the beach this year. The salt, sun, and sand has me positively hankering for a G&T. Will hopefully remedy that this Friday.

Hope you're sipping something good this week.